Almost everyone has the quest to lose weight these days. Most of you toil hard in the gym or do the groundwork to shed those extra pounds. You might also have a weight loss diet plan that you must follow wholeheartedly. But let us break it to you by working out and maintaining your diet, you are doing only 50% of the work.
The key to losing weight is to get proper sleep. It’s the remaining 50%. Not getting an adequate sleep of at least 7-8 hours can put all your hard work in vain.
Let’s explore how.
How Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss Journey?
Lack of sleep can defeat your efforts. Sleep recharges you. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll feel drained. Your ability to perform in your workout sessions will also go down.
The below-mentioned reasons explain why sleep is so crucial to achieving your fitness goals.
1. Muscle Recovery And Growth
When you work out at the gym, you tear down your muscle tissues. The actual weight loss results are not seen at the gym. But, they depend upon your sleep routine and diet.
When you sleep, your body works to repair and regenerate tissues that you broke down during exercise. Getting a deep sleep will allow your body to release the growth hormone. This hormone helps grow your muscle and repair it.
If you do not get proper sleep, muscle recovery might get delayed. Your strength and performance will also decrease.
2. Reduced Energy
Not getting enough sleep will negatively impact your energy levels. Besides, you’ll also have more mood swings and an improper cognitive function. All these can affect your workout program.
You will also end up reducing your endurance. It means that you will not be able to run as much as you used to or leave as heavy as you could before.
3. Weight Management
A lack of sleep can play with the hormones responsible for regulating your appetite. These hormones take control of your metabolism.
When you don’t allow your body to relax, these hormones can spike and cause you hunger pangs. You might also develop decreased satiety, causing you to consume more calories. Eventually, it can lead to weight gain, defeating your weight loss goals.
4. Injury Prevention
As mentioned, inadequate sleep can delay your response time. As your reaction time increases, you might end up compromising coordination and balance while working out. It makes you more susceptible to injury while working out.
However, if you sleep for eight hours or more every day, you will have a better chance of completing your workout without injury.
5. Maintains Your Mental Health
Most of the mood disorders occur because of the lack of sleep. You will not be able to see effective weight loss results without a proper sleep routine. It might end up making you anxious. In some cases, extreme anxiety can also push you into depression.
So, inadequate sleep can affect your motivation to exercise regularly. It might even increase the stress hormones in your body and impact your recovery. Sometimes, you might end up overtraining and deteriorating your health even more.
6. Improving Your Sleep Habits
A restful and proper sleep is an important part of a weight loss program. The below-mentioned tips will help you develop good sleeping habits.
- First, pick a sleep schedule and stick to it. Try your best to go to bed and turn off the lights at the same time every day.
- Taking a sleep schedule will help your body to build an internal clock and also make the quality of your sleep better.
- You can also adopt a relaxing bedtime routine. This way, you’ll be able to signal your body to sleep. Try to incorporate habits such as reading, listening to podcasts, etc.
- Turn down the temperature of the room in which you sleep. Make it dark by turning off the lights and ensuring that it is quiet.
- Get comfortable mattresses and pillows.
- Avoid using a phone or screen at least one hour before you try to sleep. These devices emit a blue light that suppresses the production of melatonin. In the absence of melatonin, you’ll have difficulty sleeping.
- At least five hours before your bedtime, try to avoid stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol.
Conclusion
If you want to shed some pounds and achieve your fitness goals, getting quality sleep is a must. Proper sleep will not only help in your muscle growth and recovery, but it can improve your life for good. You’ll experience a better mood and improved mental health by adopting a healthy sleeping routine.
So, follow these steps and build better sleeping habits to get in the desired shape.